"TIME GENTLEMEN PLEASE"
FADE IN:
A nondescript street. MIKE and GEOFF stand outside a building.
GEOFF is half-humming, half-singing 500 Miles by The Proclaimers
and tapping his feet. He is Scottish.
MIKE
Geoff, why are we just standing here doing nothing?
GEOFF
Mike, we are indulging in that time-honoured tradition among
lego folk – standing around waiting for something weird to happen.
MIKE
Oh, right. Has anything happened yet?
GEOFF
Not yet.
MIKE
I still say the tiger would win.
GEOFF
Mike, I’ve explained this before. The outcome of a fight between
a shark and a tiger would depend entirely on the arena of combat.
Granted, if they were fighting on land...
What’s that?
We begin to hear a distant sound, gradually getting louder. The
sound resolves itself into a long scream
MIKE and GEOFF look around for the source of the noise as YELLOW
plummets to the ground behind them. He is dressed in the style of
a classic space man. As he hits the ground, MIKE and GEOFF turn
around to see what the noise is.
The spaceman sits up and shakes his head to clear it. He stands
and looks around him. MIKE and GEOFF look up as we hear another
distant sound. This time it resolves itself into two screams.
The spaceman also looks up.
At the last possible moment, the spaceman takes a step backwards
as two more spacemen, RED and WHITE, hit the ground.
YELLOW ignores his comrades as they dust themselves off and steps
round them to address MIKE and GEOFF
YELLOW
Greetings, friend. My colleagues and I are travelers in time. Tell
me, what year is this?
MIKE looks blank for as long as it takes to indicate that he’s not
too sure himself, then turns to GEOFF
GEOFF
It’s 2002.
YELLOW
2002? Marvellous!
Gentlemen, this is a momentous occasion! Our time
machine has flung us through time from 1981 to the very dawn of the
21st century! We are pioneers at the very edge of the last great
frontier, pushing back the boundaries of science and mathematics!
Oh, they laughed back at the lab, but we showed...
GEOFF
What time machine is that then?
YELLOW, RED & WHITE look at each other, then around on the ground as
the whistling sound of something really quite heavy falling at speed
becomes audible and begins getting louder. They all look up and step
out of the way of the time machine as it crashes noisily to the ground.
It makes a soft “pinking” sound for a second or two, then with a creak,
falls apart.
YELLOW
Hmm.
YELLOW, RED & WHITE look at the broken time machine, then at each other.
RED kicks at a runner and something falls off.
YELLOW
I wonder if you’d be able to direct us to the nearest matter
transportation pod.
MIKE
The what?
YELLOW
You know... a teleportation unit?
GEOFF
I don’t think they’ve been invented yet.
YELLOW
Oh. Could you give us a ride in your hover car?
GEOFF
No hover cars either, I’m afraid.
YELLOW
Personal jet packs?
GEOFF
Sorry. Um, there’s a bus stop just over there.
YELLOW
Are the buses driven by robots?
GEOFF
I’m afraid not.
YELLOW
It’s the year 2002, mankind is gazing out at the dawn of the new millennium,
and you’re telling me people still get around on buses? Has anything at
all happened in the last 20 years?
GEOFF
Well, they knocked the Berlin wall down, leading to the unification of
East and West Germany... then there was the collapse of communism in the
soviet union... giant space mutants invaded the Earth and now stalk the
planet feeding off mankind.
At this point, and over the next couple of lines, a MUTANT appears just
in shot, sniffs around, then swipes RED and retreats.
GEOFF
Oh, and we have reality tv.
YELLOW
Reality tv?
Crunching sound off-camera
GEOFF
They put cameras in a house, then people move in and you get to watch them
on tv while they... do stuff... in the house.
YELLOW
GEOFF
That’s about it.
Off-camera, the MUTANT makes a “ptui” sound and RED’s helmet bounces into
shot. It remains out of sight of the characters.
YELLOW
I was rather hoping for something a bit more... y’know... space-age.
WHITE looks around to see where RED has gone. He starts to raise his hand
and is about to say something to YELLOW when the MUTANT reappears, more
confident now, and swipes WHITE
GEOFF
Oh! They started making Star Wars movies again.
More crunching off-camera
YELLOW
Really? Marvellous!
GEOFF
Well, I wouldn’t get too excited...
Another “ptui” and a helmet bounces into shot. This time, it into view of
our characters.
YELLOW
Hey!
MUTANT reappears as YELLOW turns to see where the helmet came from. He too
is swiped in much the same way as the previous two.
MIKE & GEOFF watch the off-camera mutant as we here the now-familiar crunching
and see the helmet roll into view.
GEOFF
You know, the weird thing is that I made up the part about the space mutants.
FADE OUT...
ENDING 1: SIMPLE
Black, following fade out
MIKE
But who do you think would win in a fight between a shark and a lion?
GEOFF
You are such a jackass.
MIKE
I think the lion would win because sharks
don’t have legs.
GEOFF
Please stop talking now.
END
ENDING 2: BTTF
Fade back in to GEOFF fiddling about with the broken time machine.
GEOFF
Let’s see what we can do with this...
More tinkering, until the time machine is fixed and GEOFF gets in the pilot’s
seat. MIKE leans over to have a look.
MIKE
What’s this for?
The time machine disappears in a shower of special effects. Close on MIKE just
staring into space, occasionally looking around.
Wide again. The time machine rematerializes, but this time it looks more futuristic
and is hovering (why not make it easy on myself). GEOFF is still piloting, but
is now wearing a more futuristic outfit.
GEOFF
Mikey, you gotta come back with me!
MIKE
Where
GEOFF
Back to the future!
END
ENDING 3: MONEY
Fade back in to GEOFF fiddling about with the broken time machine.
GEOFF
Do you know what this means, Mike? If we can get this fixed up, we could use it
to make a fortune on the stock market. Heck we could just travel forward
to next week and get the winning lottery numbers. We can be millionaires! All we have to do is keep it under our hats and make sure no-one else
finds out...
Fade out
Caption: The next day...
Spinning newspaper effect leads to the front page of the Daily Tribune, which
reads “DIM MAN INVENTS TIME MACHINE”. The subheading reads “Scientists baffled”